Thread: FBI makes new bid to find 1971 skyjacker

FBI makes new bid to find 1971 skyjacker
Wed Jan 2, 3:31 AM ET

PORTLAND, Ore. - The FBI is making a new stab at identifying mysterious skyjacker Dan Cooper, who bailed out of an airliner in 1971 and vanished, releasing new details that it hopes will jog someone's memory. The man calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a Northwest flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle on the night of Nov, 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.

In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he jumped out the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes.

On Monday, the FBI released drawings that it said probably are close to what Cooper looked like, along with a map of areas where Cooper might have landed.

"Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? We're providing new information and pictures and asking for your help in solving the case," the FBI said in a statement.

The FBI said that while Cooper was originally thought to have been an experienced jumper, it has since concluded that was wrong and that he almost certainly didn't survive the jump in the dark and rain. He hadn't specified a route for the plane to fly and had no way of knowing where he was when he went out the exit.

"Diving into the wilderness without a plan, without the right equipment, in such terrible conditions, he probably never even got his chute open," Seattle-based agent Larry Carr said.

He also didn't notice that his reserve chute was intended only for training and had been sewn shut.

Several people have claimed to be Cooper over the years but were dismissed on the basis of physical descriptions, parachuting experience and, later, by DNA evidence recovered in 2001 from the cheap tie the skyjacker left on the plane.

In 1980, a boy walking near the Columbia River found $5,800 of the stolen money, in tattered $20 bills.

"Maybe a hydrologist can use the latest technology to trace the $5,800 in ransom money found in 1980 to where Cooper landed upstream," Carr said. "Or maybe someone just remembers that odd uncle."

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On the Net: FBI on Cooper: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec07/dbcooper123107.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080102/...yDjv024YpH2ocA

The history channel has ben running a documentry on Cooper this past month ... over and over... maybe this will generate new information

Finder hopes to sell '71 hijacking cash
By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press Writer
56 minutes ago

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - In 1980, 8-year-old Brian Ingram found the sole link to the only unsolved airline hijacking in U.S. history buried in the sandy banks of the Columbia River dividing Washington state from Oregon.

Now 36, Ingram hopes to auction the weathered bundle of $20 bills as the FBI launches a new effort to find the unknown hijacker who parachuted into the night after taking over the 1971 Northwest Orient Airlines flight.

"Think about it; it was the biggest manhunt. They never found any clues to this man," Ingram, who lives in Mena, Ark., said Wednesday. "The money that I found in 1980 is the only evidence ever linked to this guy that jumped out of the 727 at the altitude that he did, with the weather."

A man calling himself Dan Cooper, also known as D.B. Cooper, boarded a flight in Portland for a flight to Seattle the night of Nov. 24, 1971, and commandeered the plane, claiming he had dynamite.

In Seattle, he demanded and got $200,000 and four parachutes and demanded to be flown to Mexico. Somewhere over southwestern Washington, he took off his tie and jumped out the plane's tail exit with two of the chutes.

Police and FBI agents never found Cooper in the dense forest of pine and Douglas fir below.

During a family vacation nine years later, Ingram was scrounging for firewood in the sands along the Columbia River when he uncovered three bundles of deteriorated $20 bills. He said the rubber bands around the money "turned to powder" when touched.

The family called the police the next day and gave them the serial numbers off the $5,880. The numbers matched the bills given to Cooper.

The discovery propelled Ingram into newspapers across the Pacific Northwest.

"When I was younger, it was exciting. I was the ugly duckling, but I had more girlfriends after that than I could shake a stick at," Ingram said, laughing. "I went through the time really realizing the historics on the case. ... People are going to know about it, read about it, really for a long time, forever."

A court forced Ingram to split the find with the airline's insurance company, which put up the ransom. Now, Ingram said he wants to sell his two envelopes with scraps as small as pennies, along with the 13 half-bills and nearly 20 full bills he owns.

Ingram said he'd like to keep at least one of the bills for his family and maybe offer one to the Smithsonian Institution or another museum. However, he said he thinks auctioning the bills off could raise enough to put a child through college.

Ingram's plans come as the FBI announced a new effort to solve the hijacking. The bureau says it found DNA evidence on the clip-on tie Cooper wore. However, Steve Frazier, a spokesman for the FBI's Little Rock field office, said local agents had no plans to look again at Ingram's $20 bills.

The latest bulletin from the FBI points out how Cooper likely wasn't an expert skydiver and probably perished after jumping into 200 mph winds wearing only loafers and a trench coat. But Ingram would like to believe otherwise.

"I like the idea he's off on some Caribbean island, which he didn't take off with enough money to be able to do something like that," he said. He's "laughing at this whole thing, going, 'I made off with the loot but the kid got the joy of it.'"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080103/...dkLFLoFFxH2ocA

On the Net:

Brian Ingram's Web site: http://www.dbcoopermoney.com/